


it is time to leave home now, darling

by majesdane



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 01:57:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Maybe Claire was right.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	it is time to leave home now, darling

The steady click of the second hand of the clock on the wall reminds her just how little time is left.

She never noticed, before, how loud the clock was, as it counted out the seconds, minutes, hours. The moments and the weeks and the years, slipping by without pause, until tomorrow had today. Future, present, and all of the ruins that came with it. She should have known that she'd see the apocalypse in her lifetime; she'd spent her days thinking it would never come, as if somehow putting it out of her mind was good enough. A silent struggle that she lost without even knowing.

The scissors slice through the thin material of the photographs as she pours over them. They have to look right, shape and size, otherwise the story they're meant to tell will come out all wrong. Adelle focuses on the tape in her hands, cutting off an inch of it, folding it over until the ends are overlapping. Things have to be perfect.

 

 

Come with us, Adelle says.

Claire (Whiskey?) shakes her head. The scars from her face are almost entirely faded by now. Adelle wonders if things would have been different, if not for Alpha. If Whiskey had been fixed, like Victor, her face smooth and beautiful. What if Whiskey had --

I have to stay here, Claire says, tucking a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, glancing around Adelle's office. Her eyes linger on the collage on Adelle's wall, a sorry, clumsy memorial to those who were lost before they even had a chance to. Foxtrot. Tango. Mike.

November.

Echo (Caroline?) toys will her holster, flicking it open and snapping it shut. If you stay here, you'll go mad.

There are worse things than madness, Claire says.

 

 

Adelle is tired. Tired of fighting, tired of running. She has never understood why all of like has to be a struggle, an upwards battle. She strokes Topher's hair, murmurs soothing, mindless words against his temple. He grabs at her, knitting his fingers into her blouse, keeping her close. Adelle thinks absently about finding the Dolls still left alive after Alpha's rampage, thinks about pulling them into her arms. Consoling them.

It was just like this.

They all look at her with thinly veiled pity; it makes her feel sick, angry -- though the anger that bubbles in her is half-hearted, vague. She just can't seem to muster up the strength to feel much of anything any more. Just a dull, throbbing sadness. Regret. She sighs, as Topher begins to babble incessantly, inherently, into her shoulder, his fingers twitching with the desire to explain things he doesn't even fully understand.

Adelle presses a kiss to his forehead, says that everything will be okay.

 

 

Maybe Claire was right.

There are worse things than madness.


End file.
